Chapter 4 
Chapter 4
THE POLICE LIEUTENANT in charge of the ground-floor office eyed Grimes and Dunbar as though they were candidates for admission. “Yes?” he barked.
“I am Captain Dunbar,” said the local astronautical superintendent. “This gentleman is Commodore Grimes.”
The policeman’s manner softened very slightly. He asked, “And what can I do for you gentlemen?”
“We wish to see Mr. Pleshoff. Colonel Warden said that it would be in order.”
“Oh, yes. Pleshoff.” The swarthy and burly young man leafed through a book on his desk. “We still have him.”
Pleshoff, thought Grimes. With no “Mister.” But if you get on the wrong side of the law you soon lose your rank and status.
“Cell 729,” muttered the lieutenant. He raised an imperious hand and a constable obeyed the summons. “Bamberger, take these visitors to see the prisoner Pleshoff.”
“It is a work period, sir.”
“I know that. But I think that the sovereign state of Ultimo can afford to dispense with his services for half an hour, or even longer.”
“Follow me, please, gentlemen,” said the brawny Bamberger. He led the way to a bank of elevator doors. He addressed a grille set in the nearest one, said. “Constable Bamberger, No. 325252, with two visitors, Commodore Grimes and Captain Dunbar.” Then, to his charges, “Stand beside me, please. One on either side of me.” And again to the grille, “Constable Bamberger and party positioned.”
There was a flash of intense light, lasting for the briefest fraction of a second. Grimes allowed himself to wonder how he would look in the instantaneous photograph. The door slid open to reveal an empty cage. There was no control panel. The door silently shut as soon as they were all inside. Bamberger said, “Level 33.” There was only the slightest tug of acceleration to indicate that they were being slowly carried upwards.
Grimes said, “I take it that your various robots are programmed to obey only the voices of the prison staff.”
“I cannot answer that question, sir.”
“Mphm. And I suppose, too, that the elevators move very slowly unless some key word or phrase is used, so that any prisoner attempting to escape from an upper level in one cage would find that those on the ground floor had been given ample time to prepare for his reception.”
“I cannot answer that question, sir.”
“If the machinery running the elevators obeys only the voices of the guards,” said Dunbar, “how could a prisoner persuade it to work for him?”
“In the history of penology,” said Grimes, “there are many instances of prisoners persuading guards to help them to escape. And not only with a knife or gun in the back.”
“I’m afraid that I can’t see Pleshoff doing any bribery,” said Dunbar. “Not on Rim Runners’ third officer’s salary. I couldn’t do it on mine.”
“Mphm,” grunted Grimes, and Bamberger looked relieved at the change of subject.
“What work do the prisoners do?” asked Grimes.
“Pleshoff, sir,” said the constable, “is in the workroom where playmaster components are assembled. All the convicts receive full Award rates for whatever work they are doing. In the case of a prisoner not yet tried and convicted, even when undeniably guilty of the offense with which he is charged, he is allowed to keep the money he earns after the cost of his keep has been deducted. After conviction, of course, all his earnings revert to consolidated revenue.”
“Mphm.” Grimes turned to Dunbar. “I’m surprised that our Mr. Pleshoff hasn’t been up before the Beak yet.”
“He’s had to take his place in the queue, Commodore.”
“So they’re keeping you busy,” said Grimes to Bamberger.
The constable’s wooden face at last betrayed some emotion. “It’s these Blossom People, sir. They get a lungful of dreamy weed and the things they get up to aren’t at all funny. We never have the same trouble with proper criminals.”
“I suppose not. A proper criminal you just regard as one of the family.”
Bamberger gave Grimes a very nasty look, then lapsed into sulky silence.
“But they are becoming a menace,” said Dunbar. “The Blossom People, I mean.”
“I suppose they are,” said Grimes. Performing aerobatics in a 3,000-ton spaceship certainly could be classed as being a menace.
“Floor 33,” announced Bamberger. He led the way out through the opening door.
Most of Floor 33 was occupied by the workroom. Through the space ran long, slow-moving conveyor belts. Industriously engaged at these were about a hundred men, each of whom was dressed in drab gray coveralls, each of whom had his number stenciled on to the chest and back of his garment. Blue-and-silver-uniformed guards strolled watchfully along the lines, and other guards stood behind mounted guns of some kind in inward-facing balconies. Those screwdrivers, thought Grimes with a twinge of apprehension, could be used as weapons. And the soldering irons . . . But how long would a prisoner who tried to attack a guard last? Not long. He transferred his attention to an almost-completed playmaster that was sliding past him. He wondered if the machine in his own home had been assembled in a place like this.
One of the guards who had more silver braid on his sleeves than the others came to meet them. He said, “Commodore Grimes? Captain Dunbar? You wish to see Pleshoff, Number 729. You may use the refreshment room. It will not be required for general use until the next smoke, forty-five minutes from now. Take these gentlemen there, Bamberger.”
“Yes, Sergeant.”
The refreshment room was grim, gray, cheerless. It contained an ice-water dispenser and dispensers for tea and coffee. Bamberger asked if they wanted a drink. Dunbar refused one. The constable drew paper cups of coffee for Grimes and himself. The fluid was lukewarm, black, and bitter and could have been an infusion of anything at all but what it was called.
Escorted by two guards Pleshoff came in. Grimes remembered the young man, had interviewed him when he applied for a position in Rim Runners. He had been a junior officer in Trans-Galactic Clippers and had met a girl from Faraway when his ship had carried a number of Rim Worlds’ passengers on a cruise. He seemed to remember that Pleshoff had married the girl—yes, he had applied for an extension of leave during his honeymoon. And hadn’t Pleshoff’s captain mentioned to him, not so long ago, that the marriage had broken up?
There are some men who look like spacemen, like officers, no matter what they are wearing. Pleshoff was not one of them. Out of uniform—or in the wrong uniform—he looked like a very ordinary, very frightened young man. At least he didn’t look like a criminal, thought Grimes.
The commodore said to the guards, “Do you think that you could leave us alone with the . . . er . . . prisoner?”
Bamberger said, “These gentlemen were vouched for by Colonel Warden.”
One of the other men asked, “Aren’t you Commodore Grimes, sir? The Commodore Grimes?”
“There’s only one of me as far as I know,” said Grimes. “On this Continuum.”
Bamberger was puzzled by this remark and said doubtfully, “We have to ask the sergeant.”
But the sergeant was agreeable, and after a few minutes Grimes, Dunbar, and Pleshoff had the refreshment room to themselves, the two superintendents seated on a hard wooden bench and the young officer facing them, perched on a chair that looked even harder than their own seat.